The indispensable women of the sea services

In 1996, I arrived in San Diego for my first sea tour. I walked up the brow to a Navy warship that was not designed for women, and it wasn’t altogether clear whether we were wanted there, either.

In those days, the most immediate concern related to six female officers (among nearly 1,000 sailors and Marines) focused on sleeping and shower arrangements. The quick fix was a sign on the door of the bathroom, or “head,” that had “Male” printed on a blue background and “Female” on a red background on the flip side. This made for a few embarrassing encounters for men who were used to blindly trudging to the shower each morning.

And although the vast majority of my male shipmates came around quickly, there were also troubling instances of unsolicited advances and phone calls from a few male crew members. Needless to say, these challenges did not make things easier.

But it wasn’t until my first overseas deployment that I realized how just being on this ship represented progress.

When our ship pulled into Aqaba, Jordan, the host nation’s port representatives wouldn’t even speak to me when I met them to arrange power and service connections to the pier. Only after repeatedly asking for the “real” duty engineer and a few awkward moments did they realize that if the ship were to receive hotel services – and they were to be paid – they would have to work with me, the ship’s duty engineer for the day, who happened to be female.

As I return to San Diego 15 years later, I take great pride that even greater strides have been made in women’s roles in the Navy, and the military as a whole.

Today, we are not only driving ships and serving in air squadrons – we are commanding them. We have learned that women bring unique strengths, skills and perspective that have given the military a competitive advantage in day-to-day military missions, such as the courageous and innovative Marines of the Iraq Lioness and the Afghanistan Female Engagement Teams, who are able to interact with the local female populations in a way that males could not.

This week in San Diego as part of Women’s History Month, military leaders will join the largest gathering ever of women in uniform nationwide – some 1,300 attendees – at the 24th annual Sea Service Leadership Association’s Joint Women’s Leadership Symposium. While our history is our strength, our ranks still include pioneers.

For example, Vice Adm. Carol Pottenger, one of the first females selected for sea duty, is the first female Surface Warfare Officer to achieve three-star rank, and it’s only a matter of time until we have our first four-star admiral to join Gen. Ann Dunwoody, the Army’s first female four-star general.

Today, the senior officer organizing logistics and humanitarian assistance from Japan to Tunisia is Army Lt. Gen. Kathleen Gainey. And later this summer, the first group of female submarine officers will report to their boats.

These women exemplify the point made by the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, at last year’s symposium, “We’re going to continue to pursue and look for opportunities for bright young women to be attracted to the Navy, to make the choice to come into the Navy, and then to move forward and lead in the Navy.”

But progress still remains to be made. The recently released Military Leadership Diversity Commission concluded that women are still underrepresented in top leadership positions, and there are still barriers and policies that prevent some women from advancement and from contributing in national defense decisions. Without equal opportunities for leadership experience and the advancement that comes with it, there will continue to be a glass ceiling preventing our female leaders from achieving pinnacle positions such as combatant commander or service chief.

Yet as my career comes full circle and I begin training to return to San Diego to report to the ship I have been selected to command, the guided missile destroyer Higgins, I look back with satisfaction and pride. I’m proud of what women have accomplished, but I know there’s even more we can do.

I hope our leaders and policymakers see the value that military women bring to the mission and continue to take the steps needed to provide us every opportunity possible. In my mind, they have good reason to do so.

The issue is no longer whether the military can accomplish the mission with women in ranks; it’s that it cannot be done without us.

Shue is a lieutenant commander in the Navy and is president of the Sea Service Leadership Association and prospective executive officer of the guided missile destroyer Higgins.